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I’M PUBLISHED!!!

Tonight, there will be champagne and some funky music on my turntable, because as of today, I am a published author! This has been a goal of mine since I was in, oh, the fourth grade. It feels surreal. And damn good.

A few months ago, Penduline Press announced they were accepting submissions for their 10th issue, which would be Seven Deadly Sins-themed. My interest was immediately piqued. I revisited Dante’s Inferno, allowed my imagination to stretch, and typed up a rough draft in a matter of hours. I’m really proud of this work.

Here’s a little sample of “Invidia.” Click the link at the bottom of the page to read the full story through Penduline Press. And while you’re there, check out the other brilliant work that was accepted for this edition!

“As Pauline fed the rusty wire through her needle, she examined her patient, a man wearing black loafers and a navy blue suit, and sighed. She’d only be able to fix one of his trespasses during her procedure, though she supposed it was the more important of the two. She’d leave someone “up there” to deal with this man’s inability to match the right shoe with the right suit. Pauline smiled dryly at her joke and gave the wire a quick tug to make sure it was attached securely to the needle before placing it in the oversized pocket of her yellow apron.
Pauline cocked her head to the side, narrowed her eyes, and took a step closer to her patient. Her footstep echoed heavily through the space and Pauline rolled her eyes. The echo wasn’t scientifically possible. She knew this because she knew that literally nothing existed beyond the eight-foot circumference of the harsh medical lighting.
Once, between procedures, Pauline had stepped outside of the circle of light and simply dissolved. She’d felt it, felt her molecules begin to dissipate until she imagined herself the foam on top of a freshly-poured glass of root beer. When she floated back into the light, she reassembled and vowed never to leave it again. There was no point. There was nothing beyond the ring of light but the promise of an unsettling shift in being. Besides, she was dead, she had a debt to pay, and if she ever wanted to ascend, she needed to concentrate on her work.
Pauline took two small steps toward the man on the table, which were accompanied by booming echoes.
“Honestly,” she said, her voice also reverberating off of nothing, “I don’t need the ambience. It doesn’t make me comfortable; it makes me twitchy. And when I’m working on eyelids, I’m pretty sure you want my hands to be steady.”
Pauline waited a moment, staring out into the darkness about her, and then took another step. Silence greeted her like an old friend. She smiled and gave a single nod out to the darkness, a thank you.
Pauline approached the man on her table and licked her cracked lips.
“Let’s see what we’ve got today,” she said, placing a hand over the man’s beating heart and closing her eyes…”

Wow, I can’t wait to read the full story! What a cool premise. I am so proud of you, and so inspired! I can say I knew you when – as a fellow Creative Writing alum of U of A. I need to stop being such a wimp and get some of my stuff out there – you are an inspiration!

Girl, sometimes you just gotta put the fear aside and get your stuff out there! A good friend gave me a kick in the ass, told me to start submitting, and now I’m published. 🙂 Put your work out there in the universe, lady, and believe that it’s good enough. We Wildcats can write!

Thanks for the encouragement, Tiffany! What I should really do is come to the writers’ group that you and Sara are a part of – my friend Dayna invited me ages ago. I think it would keep me honest. My boyfriend is a writer as well, I think he would really benefit from the meetings too. Yay writing! Makes me happy. Congratulations again!